


Will Graham Is Dead (Perhaps He Was Never Alive)

by IAmJustAlways (ThirtySeven)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Camping, Fluff, M/M, Marriage, Murder Husbands, Oneshot, Romance, Short Story, Soulmates, at least in will's mind, can also be seen as all the camping sex, can be seen as, casual mentions of murder, creepy and twisted romance is still romance, married in vegas, romantic asexual relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 13:01:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6755041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirtySeven/pseuds/IAmJustAlways
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rushing toward the water with Hannibal in his arms and the day barely beginning, Will Graham died, content.</p>
<p>Will woke up minutes later coughing up water on the shore with Hannibal gasping at his side. He hadn’t been expecting that. Perhaps he should have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Will Graham Is Dead (Perhaps He Was Never Alive)

**Author's Note:**

> So I originally wrote this months ago for the hannibal xmas exchange. I posted it on tumblr but forgot to post it on here and by the time I had remembered it was months later and the fic was lost to the sea of my blog.
> 
> But very recently someone liked it! (god knows how they found it) and i followed the like back to the post and tada! here it is on ao3 for your reading pleasure.

Will Graham died in the dull grey of the almost-morning. He appreciated this, as that was always his favourite time of day. The early morning was when all was still and quiet and he could lie in bed, listening to the steady breathing of his dogs - and later Molly. Before the weight of the daylight fell onto his shoulders.

But the Sun always rose, and the weight always fell. The world kept on marching forward. So he was satisfied that his death would mean the Sun never rose for Will Graham again.

In hindsight, if he’d really wanted to commit murder-suicide, he probably shouldn’t have picked Hannibal to go with him. The bastard was blessed by the Cannibal Gods or something from the sheer amount of luck he had amassed over the years. If Will had gone over by himself he had no doubt the water would have greeted him with death. But really Will was never going out without Hannibal Lecter.

Will had once said that his life was split in two: before Hannibal and after Hannibal. Now he realized that this wasn’t quite true. Hannibal seemed more like a constant in his life than anything else. He had always been waiting to meet him, Will just hadn’t known it.

Rushing toward the water with Hannibal in his arms and the day barely beginning, Will Graham died, content. Will woke up minutes later coughing up water on the shore with Hannibal gasping at his side. He hadn’t been expecting that. Perhaps he should have. Either way he wasn’t dead and neither was the love of his life. Lives.

‘Oh my dear Will.’ Hannibal said to the sand he was slumped into. ‘I do so hope you never cease surprising me.’

Will briefly wondered who he was, now that Will Graham was dead. Whoever he was, he knew he didn’t want to disappoint this man (monster, god, cannibal) beside him.

The world faded to black as the Sun rose.

 

* * *

 

 

Will Graham was a man afraid. He loved dogs and fishing and getting grease stuck in the creases of his knuckles while repairing a boat engine. He loved loving these things.

Will Graham loved screams piercing the silence, the sight of life draining from a person’s eyes, blood in the moonlight. These were also the things he feared the most.

Ever since Will Graham could remember, he had been slightly apart from the rest of humanity. He could see them all so perfectly. Their wants and dreams and motivations all laid bare before him. He saw himself from their eyes, felt for himself as they thought of him. The small little child, who laughed in delight when Johnny Beckham scraped his knee. The weirdo who looked through everyone, the kid who acted just so slightly off.

He realized that he saw the world wrong. That he was a freak, that he wasn’t behaving correctly and he knew, as those around him knew, that that was bad.

And so Will Graham changed - as much as he could - he saw the good in the goodness and the badness and ignored the feelings of wrongness.

 

* * *

 

 

Bedelia boarded a plane to Tokyo exactly three hours and twenty-six minutes after Will Graham told her to pack her bags. Will found this out by calling her secretary, posing as a fan, trying not to let his voice hitch as Hannibal stitched up a particularly nasty cut on Will’s leg.

‘I like to think it’s more convenient this way.’ Hannibal said later, after he had hung up on his unsuccessful attempt to locate the Verger-Bloom family. 'For now we may rest in Bedelia’s home while we plan our next step.

'Jack won’t just believe we’re dead, the FBI will come here almost as soon as they notice we’re not at the house.’

Indeed, a van with two bored FBI agents had been waiting outside the house when they’d arrived. Now the van still contained two FBI agents, but it’s difficult to be bored when dead.

Hannibal smiled indulgingly and Will wanted to punch him. Will Graham had often wanted to punch the cannibal and that, it seemed, had carried through to Will. Will also wanted to kiss him. That was new.

'I have several methods of fleeing the country lined up,’ Hannibal said, 'we will be gone before nightfall.’

'We may not have until nightfall.’ Will pointed out. They had not discussed whether they would remain together after this point; they didn’t need to.

Hannibal remained smiling. Will thought that maybe he shouldn’t trust Hannibal’s judgement while he was on morphine and immediately post self-surgery. But then again, Hannibal had the luck of the Cannibal Gods on his side.

It was then, of course, that there came the sound of tires screeching outside. Hannibal, still smiling, handed Will a kitchen knife and kissed him on the forehead.

There was no doubt about it: Will was in love.

 

* * *

 

 

When Will Graham met Hannibal Lecter, he didn’t know that this man would rend him apart.

Will Graham knew nothing about him at first, except that he was scarily insightful and therefore to be avoided at all costs.

 

* * *

 

 

As it turns out, Jack had greatly overestimated their intelligence and had assumed that they wouldn’t be stupid enough to go to Bedelia’s house. So Jack, also being extremely paranoid, sent a few officers anyway.

Jack would find these officers, along with the two in the van, stood in a circle, holding hands, their eyes gouged from the sockets and fitted into new holes where the flesh of their cheeks were once.

'A little crude, but no less satisfying.’ Hannibal remarked that night, pouring Will a serving of stew from the pot over the campfire.

Will would have smiled if it hadn’t been too painful. But Hannibal saw the smile in Will’s eyes. Hannibal always saw.

 

* * *

 

 

Before Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham had never been truly seen.

It was intoxicating: having someone who understood him. Someone normal who didn’t think he was wrong because of how he saw the world. He thought to himself that maybe this psychiatrist was someone he could trust.

In hindsight, he should have realized that no one normal could see the world his way. In any case, it wasn’t until Will Graham was on Garrett Jacob Hobbs’ kitchen floor, betrayed, that he saw Hannibal for the first time.

Despite everything, it was beautiful.

 

* * *

 

 

They camped for two months, slowly making their way south in a beaten up old tuck and some camping supplies Hannibal had picked up from a storage shed.

'Why so close?’ Will asked when he realized that his old farmhouse was only five miles away from the truck’s hiding place.

'Actually, it is a coincidence,’ Hannibal had replied, looking through the equipment in the back. 'I’ve had this set up for almost twelve years now.’

Will wondered at things like destiny for the next few hours.

Once a week or so, Hannibal would drive into a town large enough that they wouldn’t be noticed. He would drop Will at some shops to gather supplies, burner phone and a wad of cash in his pocket.

Will would go about the shops, picking up food and bottled water. He would smile to those who caught his eye, tell a story or a joke in the local accent. With his beard grown out to cover up his scar, no one questioned him.

Exactly one hour after Will had been dropped off he was picked up again, the truck sporting new plates.

Once, Will had asked why they didn’t just try to get out of the country as quickly as possible.

Hannibal had laughed and smiled at him with a familiar twinkle in his eyes. 'That is exactly what Uncle Jack is expecting, my dear,’ he said, 'If we take our time and keep travelling in an unpredictable manner, by the time we get to the border everyone will have assumed that we’ve already slipped through their net.’

Will laughed. 'Allowing us to slip through the net.’

'Exactly.’

 

* * *

 

 

Will couldn’t say exactly when Will Graham had fallen in love with Hannibal Lecter. But he knew that it was after he had finally seen him for what he was. Sometimes, when Graham allowed himself to think on it, he tried to convince himself that what he felt for his monster wasn’t love. It was too strong for love, too unconditional; it was an obsession and nothing else. His arguments always rung false.

Will Graham had never allowed himself to ponder Hannibal’s feelings for him. In moments of weakness he would look to Molly or Walter and think of how normal and happy he was with them. If he ever consciously acknowledged this thing that he and Hannibal shared, he knew he would be lost from this life.

 

* * *

 

 

A part of Hannibal’s master escape plan involved going through the occasional big city so as to remain unpredictable. About an hour out of Las Vegas, Hannibal pulled over by the side of the road, took out his latest burner phone, and made a call.

Will didn’t question it – he trusted his monster implicitly. And anyway he was only a little surprised when they drove into a dodgier side of town and Hannibal was greeted by the local crime boss.

‘Hannibal!’ Ben had cried, embracing the devil as if kin. Ben looked rather unassuming, all things considered. He had a friendly all-american charm about him that Will could see though in seconds.

‘And this must be your Will Graham.’ Ben said, turning to greet Will, who was back at the truck, leaning against his door.

Will smiled, unlike the man in front of him, he didn’t bother hiding his true nature. ‘Didn’t you hear? Will Graham is dead.’

The pair were ushered into what looked like a run-down old apartment building, only to discover an opulence inside that would meet even Hannibal’s tastes. They were lead up to a suite that would look at home in a hundred year old five star hotel.

Despite his mild discomfort at the unnecessary luxury of the rooms, Will did enjoy his first hot shower in weeks. He hummed happily, scrubbing hid body thoroughly and watched as Hannibal shaved at the basin. It struck him then, in the scalding heat of the shower that he was in love with this man who was, in turn, in love with him. Of course he’d been consciously aware of this for some time now, and unconsciously he’d known this for years, but it hadn’t really hit him until that point.

Were they together? They’d never spoken of it, not in so many words. Will had never been one for displays of affection and he knew that Hannibal didn’t care either way so there had never really been a need to discuss their relationship. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with this man and he knew it was mutual. But what did this mean? They were two people, who were in love with each other and intended to spend their lives with each other. If that wasn’t together then he wasn’t sure what was.

So, he was with Hannibal. They were a couple. They were a very sick and very strange and very intense couple. Will Graham would probably get the hell out of dodge at this point.

But Will? Will loved dodge.

 

* * *

 

 

Will Graham had never once been afraid of Hannibal Lecter. He had tried to hate him, almost for the whole time he had known him. He had even managed at the beginning. But he had never feared him. It was difficult to fear and hate someone with whom one shared a soul.

Will Graham had realised that his soul, his very being, had merged with Hannibal’s at about the time he assumed Hannibal had realised the same.

When he had the world torn from him with a linoleum knife, Will Graham should have been finally free of Hannibal Lecter.

Instead, he felt as if he were incomplete. He felt himself pulled across the world, stretched too thin over too far. In a desperate attempt to separate himself from his demon, he had followed the pull across the ocean he wielded his forgiveness as a literal knife. He would tear his knife into Hannibal and hold him and love him as the life drained from his eyes. He would seek forgiveness there, in his demon’s dying eyes. He imagined that if he did not find it, then this man was not the other part of his soul, and perhaps he could live without him.

He knew if he found it, he would follow shortly.

 

* * *

 

 

Will asks Hannibal to marry him over breakfast, on the third day in Las Vegas.

He was reading Tattle Crime website on Hannibal’s new tablet. There was a post, about a month old, titled Murder Husbands Free To Marry! He opened the link and discovered that he was now divorced. On an impulse he decided to follow Freddie Lounds’ advice.

‘Hannibal?’

‘Mmm?’ Hannibal sat opposite him, reading an old fashioned newspaper and eating a rather appetizing looking omelet and Will wondered if it had some of the meat collected from last night’s job for Ben. Then he realized that he was about to propose and that he should probably pay attention to that.

‘Will you marry me?’ He asked, going for casual.

Hannibal, in a manner which was completely out of character, dropped his fork.

 

* * *

 

 

Will Graham’s forgiveness didn’t quite work out as planned. With a bullet wound on his side and blood dripping up his forehead he supposed hanging upside down for hours was the next, illogical step.

After Verger was dead and Graham was home and Hannibal was there and still beautiful (terrible, magnificent), He missed his dogs, he missed the semblance of normalcy be had built up before he’d met the other half of his soul. So he decided that perhaps, he didn’t need his monster, perhaps the concept of soul mates was just a concept. Perhaps he could just try again at a normal life.

 

* * *

 

 

Hannibal refused to speak to him for the rest of the day.

Will refused to acknowledge Hannibal’s tantrum and continued through the day as if nothing was different. On the inside, he wondered for the first time if perhaps his understanding of his relationship with Hannibal was wrong. If Hannibal just saw him as a comrade, a friend an obsession. If Bedelia had just been having him on.

His doubts were set aside that evening, as he was lying in bed, waiting to fall asleep. Hannibal came into the room and took the other side of the bed as usual.

‘You are taking my name.’ He said, as if he were commenting on a book he’d read.

Will smiled into his pillow.

 

* * *

 

 

He didn’t have to ask Bedelia. As soon as the question he had been denying for so long rose to the surface he knew. He barely listened to her reply – some poetic form of simultaneously avoiding and answering his question. Before him, his happy, simple, normal life crumbled.

Will Graham may have died when he threw himself over a cliff, bit he was marked for death the moment he realized that he never existed in the first place.

 

* * *

 

 

The wedding, if one could call it that, was a very relaxed, very small affair. Ben had an official in his pocket who could fill out the legal forms required. No words were said, Hannibal and Will merely filled out some forms and they were wed. Ben had teared up and clapped and Hannibal had smiled at him and Will Lecter was elated and in love and just married so he kissed his husband.

They had to leave immediately after that. With new identities thanks to Ben, they hired a charter plane to Texas. From there they bought a car and made their way south and that’s where Jack lost them.

And perhaps, if they had behaved themselves, and laid low and lived a quiet life, they would never have been heard from again. But they had people to see and promises to keep and Hannibal could never bare the quiet life long.

And his husband loved him for it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So what do you think? tell me if you liked my characterization of will, it's basically story form of all my meta on him plus some murder-husbandy goodness.


End file.
